Drank: Churchkey Can Co. Pilsner

Lousy beer in a stupid package—just like dad used to drink.

The modern beverage can is the product of
100 years and millions of dollars of research, at least some of which
involved a particle accelerator. It weighs half an ounce. It is easily
recyclable. Most important, it is very, very easy to open.

Too
easy, apparently. Churchkey Can Co. recently debuted a Pilsner packaged
in an old-fashioned, straight-sided can—the sort that littered American
roadways before the introduction of the bottle bill, and requires a
wedge-shaped opener to punch holes in the top. The company was started
by two Portland homebrewers, a Wieden+Kennedy designer and an actor,
though the beer is brewed in Seattle. The explanation for their
ecologically despicable move—the cans are much heavier than their more
technologically advanced counterparts—is that they’re an “homage to an
era of hard work, community, and some great stories,” none of which are
apparently to be found among today’s worthless, tab-pulling American
drinkers.

Never mind that
tabless cans were last widespread in the early 1970s, the nadir of the
American brewing industry, when the beer was lousy and Anheuser-Busch
was busy gobbling up smaller competitors. Never mind that possibly no
one who was old enough to drink beer in the pre-tab era is nostalgic for
the extra effort. None of that matters, because Churchkey is the
beverage equivalent of lugging a typewriter to the coffee shop. It
doesn’t matter how stupid it is so long as other people see you doing
it.

But does it taste
good? The company’s slogan is “It’s worth the effort.” I respectfully
disagree: Beermongers didn’t have any of the openers that ship with
six-packs of Churchkey when we picked up our cans, and all the openers
in our office were of the post-1965, single-ended variety. After a
half-hour search, we resorted to taking the whole top off the can. We
were rewarded with a sub-standard Pilsner with a catty nose. The beer is
unpleasantly slimy on the palate, overly bitter with a metallic
aftertaste. It’s lousy beer in a stupid package—just like dad used to
drink. Not recommended.